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emiged 's review for:
Esther the Queen
by H.B. Moore
I'm a sucker for novels in scriptural settings, especially those that strive to shed light on the lives of women in Biblical times. I admire the imagination, study and effort it takes to fill in the gaps in the scriptural text to make these too foreign stories make sense to our modern minds.
In Esther the Queen, Heather B. Moore does a solid job of making Esther come to life as a realistic, sympathetic character. King Ahasuerus is given depth as well, as Moore allows him to express his regret for the decisions that he made leading to Queen Vashti's banishment, accepting his own responsibility for the situation and willing to look at how he can improve. The tensions between the dominant Persian culture and the Jewish minority are well explored and explained.
The elements Moore adds to the story to help us modern readers connect the dots may or may not be how it "really happened," but they move the story forward in a plausible way. She provides Haman believable impetus for hating the Jews as virulently as he did in the Biblical text. I really like how she orchestrates the first accidental meeting between Esther and Ahasuerus, too, that sets everything in motion. Mordecai could have been fleshed out a little better, I thought, though I enjoyed the introduction of his children at the beginning.
To read the rest of this review, visit Build Enough Bookshelves.
In Esther the Queen, Heather B. Moore does a solid job of making Esther come to life as a realistic, sympathetic character. King Ahasuerus is given depth as well, as Moore allows him to express his regret for the decisions that he made leading to Queen Vashti's banishment, accepting his own responsibility for the situation and willing to look at how he can improve. The tensions between the dominant Persian culture and the Jewish minority are well explored and explained.
The elements Moore adds to the story to help us modern readers connect the dots may or may not be how it "really happened," but they move the story forward in a plausible way. She provides Haman believable impetus for hating the Jews as virulently as he did in the Biblical text. I really like how she orchestrates the first accidental meeting between Esther and Ahasuerus, too, that sets everything in motion. Mordecai could have been fleshed out a little better, I thought, though I enjoyed the introduction of his children at the beginning.
To read the rest of this review, visit Build Enough Bookshelves.